


I tried to go, to follow,

by alexanger



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Dæmon au with a twist, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-13 09:22:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7971604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexanger/pseuds/alexanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thought of telling anyone his monster’s name - of that incredible intimacy, that pang of truth, the knowledge that another human being knows the name of your soul - it’s horrible to contemplate. It’s like standing at the edge of a precipice and deciding to jump.</p><p>People, as a rule, tend not to jump.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluecarrot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/gifts), [eIiza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eIiza/gifts), [xXDNHXx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xXDNHXx/gifts).



> for jane, because she asked me for hamburr and i want to do that justice.  
> for mango, my eliza.  
> for bean, who is possibly the most encouraging friend anyone could ask for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A light in the room  
> It was you who was standing there -

The monster at Alexander’s feet salivates. He’s small - he reaches just to Hamilton’s hips - but fully a quarter of his body is that huge mouth, slavering jaws, jagged, pointy teeth.

Every time he introduces himself, Alex needs to explain that no, his monster isn’t going to bite - not like the beast could do much damage anyway, being unable to touch anyone besides Alexander - and no, he isn’t dangerous. Something tells him that, even if it was considered acceptable to introduce one’s monster by name, it would probably be a good idea to keep his name secret anyway. A beast like that with the name Hunger - well, he’d probably never be able to speak to anyone without them running away in terror.

Alex has nicknamed his monster Prowl. It’s fitting enough that no one questions its origins (which, of course, is considered terribly rude - but some people do anyway) but it doesn’t give away his real name.

The thought of telling anyone his monster’s name - of that incredible intimacy, that pang of truth, the knowledge that another human being knows the name of your soul - it’s horrible to contemplate. It’s like standing at the edge of a precipice and deciding to jump.

People, as a rule, tend not to jump.

There was a moment - before John left -

It’s hard to think about. When everything changed, and John decided to go.

Not important.

It’s been maybe six months since John’s deployment. He and Hunger have been on their own since then - if anyone can be said to be fully alone; when the shape of your soul walks beside you, there’s no such thing as loneliness. In theory, anyway. But in practice -

John comes back between tours. He’s supposed to be back by the end of the day, so Alex gets his shit together. He’s been deep cleaning their apartment for a week and running errands, making sure it’s a livable home for John to return to. John doesn’t need to know about the way Alex lives when he’s not there. When he’s away, Alex seems to dissolve - he still aches for satisfaction, but his drive leaves with John. If he didn’t know better - if Hunger wasn’t always there by his side - he would say John was his soul. No one else fills the emptiness in him so completely.

There are just couple hours to kill now, and he’s killing them by taking Hunger out. His monster is chattery and garrulous - there’s something vital in him, some spark, that wakes up when John is on his way back. Alex wonders if Hunger feels the heat of John’s beast; he wonders if Hunger pines for Recklessness the same way he pines for John.

Hunger chases pigeons in the park, all gnashing jaws and laughter, and Alex can’t help but grin.

“What would you do if you caught one?” he asks.

“Eat it,” Hunger says immediately.

“Good thing you can’t catch them, then. You’d get all _kinds_ of weird diseases.”

Hunger slams his hand down on a pigeon and it phases right through. “That counts,” he says. “Alex, that _totally_ counts.”

“Yeah, definitely. Thousand percent. You done chasing sky rats?”

“Never,” says Hunger, and there’s that light in his eyes, that spark - the one that looks like flame - that Alex has been missing for months.

“I just need to get you a ball or something. Play fetch with you at home.”

“I’m not a _dog,”_ Hunger says scathingly. He tries to pout, but his teeth are too big - his jaws are locked in a permanent grin, and it doesn’t really work with the wounded-puppy look he’s attempting.

“You’re right,” Alex says, “dogs are useful.”

Hunger snarls and leaps at Alex, gnashing his teeth and making a horrible noise deep in his throat. Alex grins as Hunger’s jaws close gently around his wrist; he tries to keep the laughter inside, but it bubbles over and spills out. “Stop it,” he says, grabbing Hunger by the tail and tugging. “People are going to think there’s something wrong with us.”

“Just ‘cause other people aren’t any fun doesn’t mean _you_ have to be boring, too,” Hunger grumbles around his arm, but he obligingly releases his hold.

“Well, _other_ people don’t sit in a park watching their grosser half chasing pigeons -”

“Hey, how long have I been entertaining you? How long til gorgeous eyes shows up at the airport? You could be at home, staring at the wall, moping and touching yourself -”

Alex can’t help but chuckle. He wrestles Hunger upside down and tickles his feet between the paw pads, and Hunger shrieks with laughter and squirms.

When he lets Hunger down, the both of them are breathless and exuberant - and absolutely causing a scene. Alex almost feels embarrassed, but Hunger is sending off pulses of unadulterated joy, and how can he be embarrassed when his heart pounds with happiness and love?

“I could be, yes,” Alex agrees, finally, “but you complain when I do that. So. Here we are.”

“Yeah, like I wanna see you doing that -”

“Don’t even pretend it doesn’t feel good for you. You feel everything I feel.”

Hunger’s grin widens and his teeth grind a little. “Yeah, maybe - but it’s better when Aedan is here.”

Aedan - Recklessness -

Alex swallows. “Soon, buddy,” he says, and the words echo painfully between them. _Soon soon soon._

The waiting is bittersweet.

 

* * *

 

And then, at the airport - pushing between crowds, the heat of humans, the sound of a myriad of beasts all chattering together - Hunger sitting on his shoulder and keeping a look out -

And then, when he catches sight of licking flame, orange spotted blue, riding on a familiar shoulder -

And then, when Hunger leaps and tackles that fire, when Alex _feels_ the rush of flame crashing into Hunger’s purple fur -

That’s when John shouts and Recklessness - Aedan - surges, and Hunger yelps and Alex yelps with him, and they come together in a rush and there’s nothing for long moments but John’s freckles and John’s hair and John’s arms and -  
Hunger laughs, a sharp, aching sound, and it pounds at Alex’s ribs, _thud thud thud_ loud and thundering like his heart.

“I missed you,” Alex says, and Hunger echoes it, _I missed you, I missed you,_ and Aedan - Recklessness - Aedan repeats it and burns brighter.

“I know,” murmurs John.

“I know,” echoes Aedan.

_I know. I know._

There is nothing like the crackle of souls brushing. Hunger holds Aedan like he’s afraid to ever let go again, and Aedan murmurs, “Prowl, oh -”

“Take me home,” Alex says to John, and John - that solidity, thank God, the towering presence, safety -

 

* * *

 

They fold together in their bed, in their home, between the walls they painted together, on sheets they both chose.

He is full, full for the first time in so long - there’s fullness and then there’s _fullness_ , the feeling of John inside him, Aedan heavy in Hunger’s arms -

“Reckless boy,” Alex whispers, arcing up into John, and Aedan laughs.

And John can’t _know -_ he’s never told him - but he whispers back, “you’re so _hungry,_ Alex,” and that’s when Alex cries out and shudders, his body tensing down to one point of light, to where it meets John’s body, and Hunger grits his teeth and growls.

And it hurts - it hurts perfectly - and the hunger, and the Hunger, surges, and it will never, never end.

 

* * *

 

There are weeks and weeks before John’s next tour, and it always seems like so much time, at first - but there’s never enough for all they want to do.

Hunger and Aedan never let go of each other. It’s something almost too intimate for public - Alex and John both know it’s not something that’s _done,_ really. It’s a show of closeness that should be kept for home - it’s like making out on a park bench, rutting surreptitiously in the bushes after dark - but they can’t help it. Hunger carries Aedan in his arms like he’d sooner die than let go; Aedan clings to Hunger’s mane and murmurs “Prowl, Prowl,” like a prayer.

And the way it feels, to have their souls pressed so close against each other - fuck, it’s _intoxicating._ Alex can feel the heat of Aedan’s flames licking through Hunger’s fur. He can feel the slim, nimble fingers combing through Hunger’s mane. He can feel it when Hunger looks at Aedan and the blue freckles in the flame match up with the spots in Hunger’s eyes.

“What does it feel like when Prowl holds Aedan?” Alex asks as they lie in bed one morning. Hunger has Aedan curled against his chest, and every so often they nuzzle closer, in what would be a kiss if Hunger could close his mouth.

John shuts his eyes and basks in the feeling. Alex can see the hair on his arms stand up; he can see gooseflesh rising beneath the freckles. “It’s - soft,” John says at last. “Like I’m nestled against something huge and solid and safe. He’s pudgy, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Alex says. “Soft, you’re right.”

“And his claws are - they feel rough. Like -”

“Stone?”

“Bone. Antlers.” John opens his eyes. “I don’t need to look to know Recklessness -”

“John -”

“Okay, fine - Aedan - I know he’s right where he belongs.”

“Me too,” Hunger murmurs.

“I wish you’d let me use his real name, Alex. I wish I could do that much with you -”

“It hurts,” Hunger says, before Alex can say anything. Aedan stiffens - there’s discordance there, between them, and then both beasts are bristling; Hunger holds Aedan closer, but his teeth grind with distress.

“Hurts?” John asks; there’s an edge in his voice.

“It’s too intense,” says Hunger.

“Too close,” Alex explains. “John - believe me - one day it won’t hurt. I’ll tell you.”

Aedan nuzzles back into Hunger’s mane and John’s shoulders release the tension Alex didn’t even notice they were trembling with.

“Promise me?” John says.

“I promise,” Alex tells him. “I’ll tell you his name one day.”

 

* * *

 

The weeks blur by. They fuck desperately at night, aching for pieces to hold on to; during the day they take endless pictures, go to all the places they talk about when John is away, make memories upon memories that are never quite enough when they’re apart again. The blue spots in Aedan’s flame flare purple; the heather markings on Hunger’s face seem to light up orange when the sun hits him just right.

They have the same conversation every night, whispered in the dark, the heat of Aedan and the solid weight of Hunger curled on a pillow at the head of the bed.

“Don’t go,” Alex pleads.

“What else can I do?” John says.

“You can get out - you don’t have to go back -”

“I made my choice - one more tour, Alex, and that’s it. I’ll get out. I’ll quit.”

“You said that the last three times -”

“I mean it this time.”

“You don’t have to go back,” Alex says, a plea, a prayer.

And John always pauses, long enough for Alex to think that this time, it’s salvation -

And then he whispers, “I promised,” and Alex curls against him with resignation.

So it goes until the day John leaves. They take him to the airport and Hunger holds Aedan fiercely. John and Alex both know that if Hunger refused to let go - if he just held on forever - John would have to stay; to move away from your monster, even more than a few feet, is unthinkable. It’s the feeling of death, stretched out into forever.

John and Alex also know that Aedan would ask Hunger to let go, and that Hunger is powerless to disobey.

But that doesn’t stop Alex clinging to John’s hand and whispering, “don’t go this time. Please. Stay here with me.”

There’s a terrible feeling in his stomach, just like there always is. There’s always that knowledge in the back of his mind, terrible, unspeakable, that maybe John won’t come back.

John laughs and kisses his face, a thousand thousand kisses, and Alex is drowning in them - and then there’s the jarring feeling of Hunger and Aedan separating for the first time in weeks, and Alex can’t help the soft cry that escapes his lips.

“I’ll come back,” John says, a promise.

“Prowl -” Aedan reaches out and flame licks up Hunger’s arm, buries in his mane, and his markings flare orange. “I’ll always come back.”

“We’ll wait,” Hunger says. Alex is too far gone to speak.

John offers Aedan his hand, swings the little beast up onto his shoulder, and then the two of them are gone.

And Hunger is cold -

Alex is so, so cold -

 

* * *

 

They email, as usual. Alex and Hunger take dozens of pictures and flood John’s inbox with them. John emails back about awful weather, about awful food, about the sound of gunshots at night, about how he saw two other soldiers’ monsters tussling in _that way_ when they thought no one could see -

John writes endless descriptions about other soldiers’ monsters. He writes about the one young man who woke up in the night and screamed his monster’s name and got shipped home, and how the horrible cry of _Doubt!_ still hurts inside his bones, even weeks later.

(That chills Alex far more than he’d ever admit. He wonders what it would be like, in a moment of weakness and fear, to let slip Hunger’s name - to know that someone else knows him so intimately, so thoroughly, and that he won’t be around to see what comes of it.)

The emails are painful. But they’re proof, at least, that out there, worlds away, John is breathing and Aedan is burning, and they’re making their journey through time to come home, come home, come _home._

 

* * *

 

And then there’s the night that Hunger jolts Alex awake and raises his claws, licking with orange flame, his eyes full of fear and horror, and he says in a terrible rasp, “Alex - Aedan - we should have told them -”

And there should be warmth in the flame, but Alex is cold, so cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos ease the pain. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tried, it was true  
> As your glance met my stare

He is empty, empty for the first time in so long - there’s emptiness and then there’s  _ emptiness, _ the knowledge that John is dead, the lack of Aedan in Hunger’s arms.

Alex doesn’t need the notification - but the death notifier knocks on his door nonetheless, sits him down on the couch John would nap on halfway through a lazy afternoon, takes his hand, and tells him what’s been gnawing on his heart all night. The notifier’s monster, a purring mass of tawny fur, rubs against Hunger; Hunger shoves her away and snarls.

Death notifier training says not to leave the deceased’s loved one alone until there’s someone else there to support them. Do they count monsters, Alex wonders idly, or do they only mean humans? Regardless, they call his friends for him - Gil and Hercules, the two most tender men in his life now that John has left him.

They close around him, hold him close, and Gil’s lanky Oeuf, Hercules’s mountainous Peach, enfold Hunger in their arms. The death notifier leaves. Alex doesn’t notice.

“I have to tell you,” he manages. Gil is wrapped around him, putting pressure on his chest; Hercules sticks his head out of the kitchen, holding a loaf of bread.

“Alex -” Hercules starts, and Peach makes a soft noise, one that sounds like stone shifting. Oeuf squirms a little. They know.

“His name -”

“Alex, love, Alex, you don’t have to -” and Gil holds him closer, kisses his forehead, and Alex bursts into furious tears.

“Recklessness,” Alex says.

Oeuf and Peach murmur the name softly, and Hunger joins in - and then Gil, and then Hercules - and in this way, they lay him to rest.

 

* * *

 

None of them leave him alone. Hercules and Peach, or Gil and Oeuf, are always in the apartment - they take shifts, so that there’s always a pair with Alex and Hunger.

Alex talks in bursts. He’ll be quiet for hours, staring into nothing - and then he’ll pick up the last conversation from where he left off, and it doesn’t matter if he’s speaking to the same person.

“You know, the worst thing is -” he says to Peach, from his blanket nest on the living room floor. And then there’s nothing out of his mouth until Hercules and Peach leave and Gil and Oeuf arrive. Time passes. Gil turns on Netflix; Oeuf, long and slender and full of energy, jitters around Hunger, combing through the matted tangle of his mane.

“- I never told him Prowl’s name,” Alex finishes finally. Oeuf starts a little; Gil pauses Brooklyn 99 and leans down.

“Can you repeat that, Alex?” he asks.

Alex shakes his head. Instead, he says, “I need to finish planning the funeral.”

“Herc and I have been doing that. You don’t have to worry. Is there anyone else you need to invite?”

There is, but he doesn’t want to. Hunger makes a pained noise.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, when Alex isn’t looking straight at him, Hunger seems lit by candlelight. There’s a glow in his fur that wasn’t there before.

Alex doesn’t notice the gradual change - he’s taken aback one day when the spots in Hunger’s eyes are suddenly vivid orange, and the heather markings on his face have been joined by blue freckles.

 

* * *

 

(“I feel warm sometimes,” Hunger confesses one night, and he touches the spot on his mane where Recklessness used to cling. “Here. But you know I can’t -”

Temperature doesn’t affect monsters - they’re affected only by their humans, only by the other souls they brush against.

“Maybe you’re imagining it,” Alex says.

Hunger can’t lie. He can’t echo Alex’s  _ maybe. _ He grunts and averts his eyes.

“And maybe you’re not.”

His fur is hot to the touch.)

 

* * *

 

He bites the bullet and calls. Time is running out.

The phone rings once and goes to voicemail. So he calls again - and on the fourth try, the phone is picked up, and Cirrus’s familiar cotton voice says, “she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“Please -” says Alex, and then Hunger leaps for the phone.

“This is important.”

There’s silence, and then Cirrus sighs. “Prowl. How important?”

“Do you think we would call if we didn’t have to?”

There’s the sound of fumbling and a thud, and then more fumbling, and then Eliza says into the phone, “what do you want?”

“Can you -” Alex starts.

“There’s a funeral. Thursday,” Hunger says.

“Alex -”

“Please,” Alex says.

“Alex, who was it?”

And then Alex breaks into sobs, and Eliza is hushing him, and her voice feels like home.

 

* * *

 

They put him in the ground and there isn’t much to say. They put him in the ground and that’s where he’s going to be - not in their bed, not on their couch, not in Alex’s arms, never again. They put him in the ground in a box and he’s meat, just meat, and where is Aedan? Where does Aedan go when John is gone? Do they travel somewhere together? Do they go anywhere at all?

Is Aedan in that box with him, his flames extinguished?

Where is his Recklessness now?

_ Reckless boy, _ Alex had whispered against his skin, between the freckles, and now the freckles are blown apart - shots through the chest, countless holes between the freckles, a whole galaxy gone supernova - and the freckles on the skin is in the ground and there is nothing, nothing, to whisper against anymore.

Alex makes a speech. It’s four words long.

“His name was Recklessness,” he says.

Convention says that a soul’s name is murmured, a prayer, a litany, but it’s horrific. The whispers creep under his skin (galaxies and galaxies of freckles under his skin behind his eyes) and Hunger howls and they hand him the flag.

They hand him the flag and Alex stares at them and asks, “what the  _ fuck _ do I do with this?”

And the soldiers - there’s resentment in their eyes, they lost him too, and the beasts at their feet stiffen, and Alex takes the flag and turns away to watch the ground come together over the box that holds his reckless boy.

Eliza holds him. He lets her. There’s nothing but bad feeling between them now, and that’s his fault, his fault, his fault - he left John for her and left her for John and made his choice and stayed, and he can’t help but think if he hadn’t - if he’d chosen differently - maybe his reckless boy would be alive.

But there’s some warmth there, and Cirrus, her long white pelt unmarred by the soil strewn underfoot, holds Hunger tenderly, and Hunger touches the spot on his chest and closes his eyes.

There are blue freckles spattered like blood across his back.

Alex tries not to see them.

 

* * *

 

He’s been named executor for John’s estate. No idea what that means. Apparently the title comes with a lawyer to guide him through the process.

“I don’t want to do this right now,” he says down the phone.

“Mr Hamilton,” says the smooth voice on the other end, “I know you’re going through a very difficult time. I  _ understand. _ ”

“How can you understand?” Alex says, and then Hunger is snarling.

“They’re  _ gone _ -”

“I know,” says the voice. “I know, believe me, I know. I  _ know.  _ Let me help you through this. There’s so much time to remember him. Let’s work together to make sure you remember him right.”

_ What do you know about right, _ is what Alex wants to say.

What he  _ does  _ say is, “what do I need to do?”

“Let me sit down with you and talk about where to go from here. There are some debts, but there’s more than enough money to settle them, and then we can move forward in transferring everything to your name.”

“Do I have to come to your office?”

“No. I can come to your home. Whatever makes the process easier for you.”

“I’m - afraid if I leave here, then -”

“I understand.”

“- but I don’t want this to hold that from him. I’ll come to your office.”

“Any time that works for you. Just let me know.”

He has nothing but time, now. It stretches into forever and that terrifies him.

The lawyer’s name is Aaron and his monster has no mouth. Hunger startles at that - at the sight of the wraithlike creature, incorporeal, floating, wordless. It stares. Its eyes are so black they seem to suck light in.

“This is Hush,” Aaron says. “Please sit down.”

Alex is stiff.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing,” he admits. “He - took care of everything, and - I mean, I  _ understand _ numbers, I can handle finances fine - but it was his, and -”

“And now it’s yours, and I know that’s hard. I  _ know, _ Mr Hamilton.”

“Alex,” he says. “Or - Alexander, if you want -”

“Alex,” Aaron repeats. “I’d rather make this as painless as possible for you.”

“Painless? Is that really something that’s possible right now -”

“No, but we don’t have to make it worse.”

Aaron’s voice is silk. It’s honey. It’s smoke, incorporeal and dark like his monster, and Alex wants to sink into it. There’s oblivion in the voice. It’s comforting.

_ You could drown me with your words and I wouldn’t fight back, _ he screams against the inside of his head, the inside of his mouth. His tongue feels thick and heavy against his teeth.

Aaron guides him through the debts, the deeds, the bank accounts. John left it neat for him - a last gift from his soldier, the man who knew order like the beat of his own heart. The funds are cold and impersonal. There was a letter from John, a last goodbye, an  _ in case I am lost in battle _ full of promises of love - and scribbled at the end, a little note:

_ I guessed his name. Is it Craving? _

And it’s so close, so fucking close but it’s not quite there and it hurts Alex more than anything else could - that he could have given that freely and chose not to.

He breaks down in Aaron’s office, and Aaron shoves a box of tissues across the desk - and then the flood won’t stop and he comes to sit on the arm of Alex’s chair instead and he whispers, in that smoky honey voice, “Alex, can I touch you?”

He’s crying against Aaron’s chest, against the thudding of a heart that’s a little too fast, a little too soft - but it’s a heart, and it’s there and it’s enough, in this moment. It’s not  _ enough _ but it’s enough.

He cries until there’s nothing in him but emptiness.

_ Not Craving, but that’s close now, isn’t it? It’s Hunger more than anything but -  _

“I’m sorry,” Alex says, “I’m stronger than this. I’m not holding it together. Can I tell you something?”

“Of course,” Aaron says.

“I didn’t - he told me his name, and I know it’s in his will, I know you know it - but I never told him mine. He guessed, and it wasn’t -”

“That’s very difficult,” Aaron says. It’s vague, it’s noncommittal, but Alex can feel the warmth there - it just takes a little searching -

“I should have told him. His name is -”

“Don’t,” Aaron says, and Alex falls silent. “You don’t know me, Alex. I know you want to make up for it, but I think you’d regret it. Save that choice for when you aren’t so upset.”

And Alex, chastened, says instead, “can I take you out for dinner? You know, to say thank you?”

 

* * *

 

Aaron has a laugh like a muted church bell. His voice becomes oaky and rich as the night wears on. He tells Alex stories, and Alex, for once in his life, is content to sit and listen.

He can hear the strain. Aaron must not speak like this often - how could he, when his monster is mouthless, wordless, forever muted? 

It’s a gift. It hurts to accept it.

Alex can’t keep up. His mind whirls and he drinks too much, and Aaron drinks too much - they’re two bottles of wine in and ordering a third, and when the bill comes, Alex says, “please, let me. I can more than afford it.”

“Yes, but I really don’t mind -”

“I did say I’d take you out -”

They squabble and Alex could almost, almost, miss the moment when Hush brushes against Hunger - if not for the crackle, the way Hunger growls, not so much aggression as it is interest.

It jolts straight to his heart.

Aaron stills.

Alex takes the opportunity to steal the bill.

Bad choices beget bad choices - he shouldn’t have asked Aaron out, shouldn’t have kept ordering wine, shouldn’t have offered to cab home with him, shouldn’t have given the driver his address instead -

Shouldn’t have asked him upstairs, shouldn’t have shown him the apartment -

Because now Aaron is on his bed, and Alex is taking off his shirt and Aaron is laughing, the thunder of the muted church bell -

“Why are you laughing?” Alex asks, defensive.

“You’re beautiful - and I’ve had  _ far  _ too much to drink, and this is a  _ terrible  _ decision -”

They come together thunderously, wet mouths and grasping hands, and Alex touches something that makes Aaron throw his head back and gasp -

They fumble out of their clothes and tumble beneath the sheets, and Hunger reaches out for Hush and -

“What do we call him?” Aaron asks, and Alex suddenly realizes there’s a susurration surrounding them - something like leaves rustling over concrete, half-formed words - Hush is whispering and there’s no name for him to murmur -

“Prowl,” Alex says, but his core screams  _ Hunger Hunger Hunger. _

_ Prowl, _ comes the whisper.  _ Prowl. _

Hunger cries out, and Hush envelopes him, and then Aaron is laughing again as Alex teases him open, slips inside him.

He cries as he fucks.

Aaron, bless him, closes his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos buy me three bottles of wine. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But your heart drifted off  
> Like the land split by sea

There’s no one else in the bed when Alex wakes up - it’s just him and Hunger, and a note laying on the other pillow:

_Sorry about last night. -A_

Hunger lashes his tail, fixes Alex with his eyes, and his teeth part and he says, “would have been nice if he’d said goodbye, at least.”

“I’ve had enough of goodbyes,” Alex says. “I’m fine without it.”

 

* * *

 

But he’s not, and Hunger knows it.

“Are you calling him?”

“No,” Alex says, but he taps the number of the office on his phone and stares at it for a while before locking the screen and tossing it aside.

But he finds himself dialing the number over and over and over, and every time Hunger gets a little less patient -

And finally, on the millionth time Alex dials, Hunger lunges and pushes his thumb and it hits call and Alex squeaks.

“It’s been _a day,_ and you’re this hung up,” Hunger hisses.

“I can’t do this -”

“Then hang up.”

It’s ringing. Alex puts it to his ear instead; Hunger looks insufferably smug.

“Aaron Burr,” says the honeyed silk voice.

“Uh - hey,” Alex says, and then he fumbles.

“Hey?”

“It’s - Alex -”

“Oh.”

“Sorry, is this a bad time -”

“Alex, I want to apologize for last night.” There’s a pause, and the susurrations sound - Aaron murmurs something and then the whispers are louder, just for a moment, and then gone, and Alex is scrambling to fill the silence.

“There’s nothing to apologize for.”

“There is. There absolutely is. I took advantage of you while you’re suffering - you’re in a terrible situation -”

“But I wanted you to. Not to take advantage, I just wanted - and I still do, Aaron, it’s comforting -”

“Alex, I don’t think -”

“I don’t want to be alone.”

Silence.

“I haven’t been alone in years.”

“Alone?”

It’s ludicrous - no one is ever really alone. But there’s a difference between your soul - your self - and another person -

There’s emptiness, stretching out ahead like forever, and Alex feels sick.

“Can I see you again?”

“This is bad for you,” Aaron says.

“What, so now you’re my therapist?”

“No. I don’t have the couch for it.”

Alex can’t help but laugh; he can hear Aaron chuckling a little along with him.

“Let’s go out again,” Alex says, when the laughter dies.

There’s the susurration - he knows the way Hush sounds, knows the way he chatters.

“It’s unethical,” says Aaron.

“Unethical my ass. I’m not paying you for any service - that’s all done - come out with me again. Don’t make me say please.”

“Mm, I almost like making you saying please.” There’s a hint of a purr in the statement, and Alex knows he’s won.

“I’ll beg if I have to.”

“Yes you will. Listen - this is a bad idea -”

“But we’re doing it anyway?”

“Well, _clearly._ Pick me up at six.”

“Okay,” Alex says, and the line goes dead.

 

* * *

 

Hush brushes against Hunger when they meet. Alex can feel it crackle inside his ribs, his heart like thunder, thudding hard against his sternum, and then Aaron kisses his cheek and he’s gone -

And it’s not about Aaron, not about the silken honey voice, not about the softness of his skin, not about the wet heat of his mouth or the strong steady hands or the way he says _Alex, oh -_

It’s not any of those things, it’s the galaxies of freckles spreading across Hunger’s back -

It’s about the hard muscle of John’s arms, the slow steady rumble of his heart -

It’s about John’s eyes John’s lips John’s hands John’s shoulders John’s cock, all the things he loves, all the things he loved, all the places he should have kissed.

So he kisses Aaron instead. He takes Aaron home and tumbles into bed with him, and he kisses every inch of his skin - and Hush arcs as Aaron arcs, and they breathe and gasp and moan together -

Hunger rakes his claws down along Hush’s back, digging in, and as Hush whispers _Prowl Prowl Prowl_ Alex sucks a bruise into Aaron’s inner thigh. He claims that tiny patch, and as he kisses away the sting he imagines his lips leaving sprays of freckles behind.

Aaron reaches out and Alex shoves his hand away, says, “no, I just want to touch you -”

Aaron laughs, muted church bells, and the pealing aches deep in Alex’s heart and he snarls and lunges -

He bites and sucks and licks and fucks and Aaron is pliant under him, opening for him, so easy and gentle and sweet, and Alex thinks, _in another life, I could have loved you._

There’s nothing there now -

But if things were different -

 

* * *

 

“You can hear him,” Aaron says, as they melt together after.

“Yes,” says Alex.

“That’s not - I mean, not everyone bothers to listen.”

Alex raises his eyebrows; Hunger shifts.

“He’s loud. If you bother to listen. But if you don’t -”

“Loud?”

“Ah. Yes, when he wants to be. If you know how to hear him. Sometimes he shouts.”

Alex can’t imagine that - can’t imagine Hush shouting.

There’s a whispered laugh, a tiny church bell, resounding in the room.

“I can teach you to hear him,” Aaron says.

“Yes,” says Alex, and then Aaron is pinning him down and sucking marks into his skin, and Hush laughs louder, and the world is quiet, for a while.

 

* * *

 

_In another life, I could have loved you._

If things were different, in another life.

If his soul wasn’t stained with freckles and loud, open laughter, broad grins, sharp words, ready fists.

 

* * *

 

“Come out with me tonight,” Alex says on another day, in another life.

“Yes,” Aaron says.

They play out this farce over and over. Alex takes him home and breathes the name _Aaron,_ swallows the name he wish he was saying instead.

In the in-between spaces, the spaces that stretch out too long, Hunger says, “it doesn’t matter who it is anymore. You just need something to fill the void.”

“Me?” Alex asks.

Hunger doesn’t look at him, but he does admit, “us.”

 

* * *

 

“What do you think his name is?” Hunger asks.

“I hate this game,” Alex says. “It’s not right.”

“But you wonder, don’t you?”

And that’s the sickness of it - that they don’t know, that they can’t guess. There are a thousand things he could be, at his core. When you’re smoke, like he is, you adapt - you fill whatever space you’re given and you’re perfectly content, no matter the boundaries, no matter the edges.

He could be Tranquility. He could just as easily be Desire. He could be Courage, he could be Kindness, he could be -

“He could be Pity,” Alex says.

“No,” says Hunger. “Not him.”

“No,” agrees Alex. “Not him.”

 

* * *

 

Generosity?

He tries to pay, every time they go out - but that might not be generosity, that might just be -

Well then, Honour?

“He’s a _lawyer,”_ Hunger says flatly. “Bullshit.”

Right. Passion -

But Aaron doesn’t seem to _have_ passion in most places - just the few, just the spaces where they’re together and he lets his guard down a little -

“We’re never going to get it,” Hunger says.

And he’s right - there’s a certain amount of guessing you can do, but it’s not easy -

There’s a trick to it, to knowing someone so well that -

And then Alex remembers how John wrote _Is it Craving?_ and he feels sick.

“I don’t want to play anymore,” he tells Hunger.

 

* * *

 

(He plays anyway -)

(Is he Wisdom? Is he Learning? Is he Understanding? Is he Compassion?)

(And he knows he’s not - but -)

_(Pity Pity Pity Pity)_

(He’s sick with it.)

 

* * *

 

John fades from Alex’s mind - not all at once, but in pieces. After half a year Alex suddenly realizes he can’t remember John’s voice.

He calls Aaron and chokes back his emotion - and when Aaron picks up, his voice is flat and apathetic as he says, “I don’t remember what he sounds like.”

“I’m sorry, Alex,” Aaron says.

“It doesn’t matter,” Alex says. “It wasn’t real anymore anyway. It was imaginary.”

There’s sympathy in the silence.

 

* * *

 

The freckles fade, one by one, behind his eyes beneath his skin. The galaxies swirl away. There’s comfort in that - John’s ghost recedes, and there’s emptiness in its place, but Alex isn’t afraid of the emptiness anymore.

“Do you think about time?” Alex asks Aaron as they lie together in the dark.

“What do you mean?” Aaron says.

“You know - time.”

“I don’t understand.”

He’s furious, suddenly, but he can’t explain why. “Nevermind,” he says. “I don’t understand either.”

Aaron allows Alex to fuck him. The motion of his hips becomes the rush of his breath becomes the pounding of his heart becomes his mind rippling into nothingness.

There is darkness, finally, behind his eyelids. No more galaxies. No more points of light, no more map of John’s skin, the spots in his eyes.

The darkness is a bullet hole -

Alex comes with John’s name on his lips, but it dies before it falls.

 

* * *

 

“What do you do?” Alex asks. “Besides work and, you know, me.”

Aaron is quiet. “I spend time with my daughter.”

“I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

“Mmhm. She’s married. I don’t see her as often as I’d like, but I make do with the time I get. You know how life is.”

Maybe he’s Secrecy.

Alex doesn’t ask much about his daughter.

In another life - in another place -

Maybe he and John would have children. Maybe their kids would be settling down, thinking about marriage.

It occurs to him he doesn’t know how old Aaron is.

It occurs to him he doesn’t know how old _he_ is.

 

* * *

 

When you measure your life by someone else’s -

He fills notebooks and notebooks and notebooks and they all circle back to John.

He gets a job. He quits his job a month later.

He fucks Aaron.

In the spaces in between, he sits. He writes. He fills notebooks and notebooks and notebooks.

Life has become a very long game of waiting.

 

* * *

 

Nothing follows a pattern anymore. There are jumps in time and the spaces between draw out, and there’s Aaron and then silence and silence and silence and even Hunger doesn’t talk much anymore.

“We need to do more than this,” Hunger says.

“Yes,” says Alex, and they don’t.

 

* * *

 

And they don’t.

 

* * *

 

“I miss you, when we aren’t together,” Alex says.

“Do you?” Aaron says, and his voice is light but suddenly Alex realizes - he feels like he’s lying.

“Yes,” he says, and it feels like an untruth, but it’s real - he _does_ miss -

Maybe it’s not Aaron. Maybe it’s just Aaron’s presence.

“Tell me three facts about me,” Aaron says.

“Your name is Aaron. You have a daughter. You’re a lawyer.”

“What’s my daughter’s name?”

Alex doesn’t know.

“You don’t miss me, Alex,” Aaron says. “You don’t know me.”

“I know you’re great in bed,” Alex says.

Aaron stands to leave.

“What, you’re going? We haven’t -”

“Maybe we shouldn’t keep doing this,” Aaron says.

“Please,” says Alex. “I don’t do well by myself.”

Aaron, bless him, stays.

 

* * *

 

“Let me tell you his name,” Alex says, a thousand times.

And a thousand times, Aaron says, “no.”

So he doesn’t - but he mouths his name in the middle of the night, when Aaron is snoring softly against his shoulder. And that has to be good enough.

 

* * *

 

“I love you,” Alex says to Aaron one day.

“Jesus Christ, Alex,” Aaron says back. “Are you serious?”

He doesn’t know what he did wrong - if he doesn’t feel anything anymore, is it so bad to pretend?

 

* * *

 

In the in-between spaces, Alex wonders if John was really the one they buried.

 

* * *

 

In the in-between spaces, he measures Aaron against John, and all he knows is that one is alive and one is dead, and he’s somewhere between, and he doesn’t know which way he’s moving anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos get me through the day when im out of monster. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to go, to follow,  
> To kneel down at your feet

“Do you remember his laugh?” Alex asks.

“I never knew him,” Aaron says.

“Oh.” Alex pauses. “I forget that not everyone - I mean, I forget that he wasn’t -”

“He was a big part of your life,” Aaron says.

“He was a hero,” Alex tells him.

But that’s not right - the word  _ hero _ doesn’t fit properly against the reckless boy, the man who got into too many fights, who came home far too often with bruised knuckles, a black eye, a split lip, his freckles doubled, trebled, with spots of blood - and whether they were his own or someone else’s - 

Alex could never say.

John can’t tell him.

It doesn’t matter anymore.

 

* * *

 

Aaron is slowly losing his patience. Alex can see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. They squabble, now, over ridiculous things - Aaron accuses Alex of wasting time, of wasting his life, and Alex just laughs in his face.

“There’s nothing to waste,” he says.

Aaron stares at him until he feels small.

“You were more alive when I met you,” he says at last. “You were hungry. And considering when I met you, and how - I think that’s pretty sad, Alex.”

“Fuck you,” Alex says, and they drop it - 

And that’s the worst part, that they drop it, that Alex doesn’t dig in and draw it out.

Hunger has started to grey. He’s sluggish.

Alex wonders if he’s sick. He wonders if he’s dying.

He wonders how long it will take.

 

* * *

 

The only time he really feels awake is when he’s with Aaron. Aaron has started to pick fights - and sometimes Alex comes alive enough to fight back, and there’s a spark in him.

Every time, it lasts a little longer -

“You need to get out of the house once in a while,” Aaron says. “You’re getting lazy and complacent and you need a hobby and also a shower.”

“Fuck you, Burr,” Alex says. “Fuck you and your pretty buzzed head. I am not lazy.”

“Name three things you’ve done today.”

“I got food, I reorganized my bookshelf, and I beat my high score in Solitaire -”

“Your hobbies are shit, they’re boring, I need to fix your life.”

“What do  _ you  _ know about having a life?”

And then Aaron smiles at him, and Alex realizes there’s colour in his voice and his hands feel warm, and he isn’t floating anymore -

He feels himself smiling back, but he can’t help saying, “you’re smiling, because you  _ know _ I’m right.”

“Sure,” Aaron says. “I’ll let you have that if it makes you feel better.”

The jab aches in his chest - something pleasant, something real -

He’d forgotten how it felt to smile.

 

* * *

 

“Why do you keep coming back?” Alex asks. “You won’t let me tell you his name. You won’t let me tell you I love you. But you keep coming back.”

“Can’t I just enjoy your company without that?” Aaron asks.

“Yes, you can - but it’s like you don’t want it.”

Aaron is silent for a long time, staring into nothing, and Hush starts to whisper - softly at first, but then louder and louder, and Alex catches flashes of  _ maybe it’s time Aaron shouldn’t you say something Aaron why do we have to keep - _

“I want lots of things, Alex,” he says finally. “But I also know how to wait for when it’s real. I want it but I want it to be sincere.”

“It’s sincere,” Alex insists.

“Is it? Or are you afraid because you didn’t say the things you wanted to last time?”

“I’m not -”

“If you can tell me, honestly, right now, that your feelings for me have nothing to do with John, then you can say anything you want.”

Alex goes to insist that it’s all true, it’s sincere, it has nothing to do with John - but a galaxy of freckles bursts behind his eyes and the breath catches in his chest, and Hunger jerks as if he’s been hit.

Aaron doesn’t say anything - he doesn’t act smug, he doesn’t hold it over Alex’s head -

But he looks at Alex and his eyes are  _ ravenous _ and that almost hurts worse.

 

* * *

 

“I don’t understand your music,” Aaron tells him, leaning back on his couch, and Alex laughs.

“That’s ‘cause you’re an old man.”

“Then you have some weird kinks, young whippersnapper. Are you  _ into  _ old men?”

“Ew.”

“Guess I’m not fucking you tonight, then.”

And Alex tackles him and straddles his legs and breathes, “what, can’t an old man like you get it up? Is that the problem?”

Aaron leans up to kiss him and pulls back and says, “I’m a year younger than you.”

“And I can get it up just fine. I’m in great shape for my age,” Alex says.

“More like you’re  _ immature _ for your age. How long have you had dinosaur print bedsheets?”

“Fuck you,” Alex says with delight.

 

* * *

 

Hunger’s fur grows brighter and the grey disappears a little every day. Alex takes him out again - to the park to chase pigeons, to Aaron’s office to distract Hush, to the farmers markets to laugh at the foodies -

There’s motion in his body, a rhythm he hasn’t noticed for a long time -

He walks faster, talks louder, gets into arguments on the subway and at the bank and in the lobby of his apartment building. He seeks out fights on the internet and wins them - at least, in his eyes.

Alex calls Aaron one day, and instead of saying hello, he says, “listen, theoretically, if someone on the internet said - and I quote - ‘fight me irl,’ and I do, does that legally constitute assault? Or can we call it, I dunno, a duel or something?”

“Uh - well, I know that in Texas, you can legally duel, but only with fists - and I’m not sure about here, I’d have to look it up -”

“So, as my lawyer, you’d advise me to kick the guy’s ass, right?”

“I’m not your  _ lawyer, _ Alex, I’m your -”

He stops talking and Alex stops breathing - and then there’s still nothing, so Alex says, “you should say boyfriend.”

“Is that what we are?” It’s light, airy.

“I mean - I’d like that.”

“Then as your boyfriend, I’m going to tell you - don’t fight the guy, Alex.”

“What, don’t you want to see me come home all battered and bruised, clean me up, give me a blow or a handie to make me feel better -”

“I’m not into recklessness, thank you very much.”

There’s silence again, but Alex is struggling to push back the emotion welling in him -

“Oh, Alex, fuck, I’m sorry, I should have thought before I spoke -”

“It’s okay,” Alex says. “Come over after work?”

“Yes, baby, yes.”

“I love you,” Alex tells him.

Aaron sighs. “Alex - I’ll see you tonight.”

 

* * *

 

“Do you think pigeons have feelings?” Alex asks, and Aaron smiles.

“What a bizarre question. Why?”

“Well, Prowl chases them, and I wonder if they feel, you know, annoyed or whatever.”

“Why does Prowl chase pigeons?”

“So he can eat them,” Alex says, like it’s obvious.

Aaron looks at him. “Is he that hungry?”

“Always,” Alex says, and he must have been a little too intense because Aaron shifts uncomfortably.

“I think pigeons probably do have feelings,” Aaron says.

“Then I guess I’m a pigeon, cause I’m feeling some shit pretty strongly right now -”

“Alex, you are  _ so _ weird -”

“Feeling like I’m ready to get some of that ass -”

Aaron laughs in his face. “Are you trying to seduce me?”

“Is it working?”

“Always,” Aaron says.

Always.

 

* * *

 

Hush and Hunger cling, now -

Not like the way Hunger held Aedan - not as tender -

Hush envelopes Hunger, wraps around him, rests his slip of a chin on Hunger’s shoulder and half-closes the gigantic black eyes (fully a quarter of his body) -

Hunger still touches the place on his chest and his back is still spattered with blue freckles and his eyes still glow with orange spots, but now he wrestles with Hush and presses soft kisses to the yielding face and nuzzles against his neck, and Hush whispers affection back, a soft and steady stream of reassurance.

“He’s warmer than I thought he’d be,” Alex says to Aaron. “He feels more like a blanket than anything.”

“Yes,” Aaron says.

“And he’s more solid -”

“Yes.”

“How does Prowl feel?”

“Empty,” Aaron says, and Alex starts.

“I didn’t realize -”

“No, not - that sounded bad. But - there’s always room for more, I think. And I can feel that.”

Hush is so loud now -

“I think soon, you’ll be able to hear the way he shouts,” Aaron says.

 

* * *

 

But despite everything -

“Alex, I really think you’re wasting your time.”

“There’s nothing else I have to accomplish,” Alex says.

“There’s always more -”

“Not for me. I’m ready to let that rest.”

Aaron lets it sit - 

But it always comes up again, and every time Alex gets more and more pissed off -

Is it that Aaron can’t get it, or that he refuses to get it? Alex doesn’t know which it is, or which is worse. It’s constant - always the same -

“You’re wasting your time -”

“I have nothing  _ but _ time -”

And Aaron is getting more frustrated, and Alex is getting more frustrated -

“I’m not you,” Alex says. “I can’t be like you. You know what you’re doing. All I know is that I wanted to leave something behind - but what do I leave? Why bother starting anything if I might not finish it?”

“At least you’ll have started something,” Aaron says.

And this time the hurt breaks, and Alex is  _ pissed, _ and he says, “and what are  _ you _ leaving behind? What’s  _ your _ big legacy?”

“I have a happy, successful daughter,” Aaron says.

“Yeah, that’s a huge legacy, great. So if all you’re doing is having a kid, why are you on me to do something great -”

“Alex, I didn’t say it needed to be monumental, just  _ something. _ Just something that isn’t sitting around feeling sorry for yourself.”

“I’m not sitting around feeling sorry for myself. Fuck! I’m spending time with you, aren’t I? I’ve been writing -”

“You’ve been  _ arguing. _ On chat forums and social media. How is that anything to leave behind?”

“You don’t know what this is like! You don’t know what it’s like to lose  _ everything _ when the one person who was supposed to always be there dies, when he didn’t have to -”

“Yes, I do.”

“No you don’t! You’ve been saying that since we met but you don’t have any idea!”

And suddenly Aaron is snarling, “how do you know? You don’t know  _ anything _ about what life has been like for me. My wife died just after our daughter was born, and I had to raise her alone. I had no time to sit around feeling sorry for yourself because I had a baby and I couldn’t afford to be selfish.”

“Okay, so you’re just fundamentally a better person than me. You don’t have to act all smug about it -”

Aaron is shaking, and Hush growls, alarmingly loud. “Don’t be rude to me, Alex. I don’t appreciate it.”

“And I don’t appreciate you talking to me like I’m a child - I don’t remember asking you for your opinion -”

Aaron clenches his fists and Hunger hunches his shoulders and Alex laughs. “What, are you going to hit me?”

“Alex, shut up.”

“No, seriously - you’re a  _ coward, _ Aaron. I’ve  _ never _ seen this much emotion from you,  _ ever. _ Go ahead, hit me.”

“Alex, I’m not kidding.”

“Neither am I! Fucking hit me, Aaron! You won’t do it, you’re pathetic -”

Hush’s growl amps up to a roar, thunderous, terrifying -

Aaron puts his whole weight behind the swing and rockets his fist up and forward into Alex’s nose, and Alex’s head hits the wall behind him with a sickening thud. Just like that, Aaron isn’t angry anymore - he’s just amazed at how much his hand hurts. When he raises it to look at it, he realizes the knuckles are split and bleeding, and he laughs.

“Jeez, Alex. It figures your head would be hard enough to break my hand,” he says.

There’s no reply.

“Oh, what, are you still mad? Look, I don’t usually hit people - I’m sorry, that was really out of line, but you have to admit it’s kind of funny -”

He turns to look at Alex, and he realizes -

There’s a huddled purple mass on his chest and he’s on the floor, and as Aaron drops to his knees, he notices that his nose is gone - there’s an obscene mass of blood and cartilage and bone in the centre of his face, and one eye is half-open and the other is swollen shut, and Aaron can’t get past the hole where the nose used to be -

“Alex,” Aaron says, “Alex, fuck, are you awake, please talk to me, I’m calling 911 -”

Alex is whispering something. Aaron leans closer, and his ear brushes Alex’s lips, and his breath smells like rust and cobwebs.

“His name is Hunger,” Alex whispers. Hush goes stiff.

“No,” Aaron says.

“Aaron -”

“How did you know?”

“Aaron?”

“Alex, how long have you known his name -”

“Mine,” Alex says, and he smiles. “That makes sense.”

“Yours?” Aaron asks, and then he realizes and his breath catches -

Alex breathes out, and Hunger - Alex’s Hunger - closes his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos mainline coffee straight into my body. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll run to you.

Every man has three names.

There’s the name he tells when he meets people - Alex, Aaron, John. Simple names. Identity in a handful of syllables.

There’s the name he  _ gives  _ his soul - Prowl, Hush, Aedan. Secrecy, the guarding of his heart.

And then there’s the true name of his soul - Hunger. Hunger. Recklessness. Something unchangeable and undeniable, something at his very core that cannot be pushed away or altered.

Every man has three names, and often one dies with him.

Not always.

 

* * *

 

The ambulance arrives and the EMTs shoot him dirty looks and when Aaron looks away, Hunger - Alex’s Hunger - disappears.

“Where’d he go?” asks one EMT.

“I don’t know,” says Aaron.

“I don’t know,” he tells the police.

“I don’t know,” he tells the judge.

“I don’t know,” he says when people ask how he was acquitted.

There’s an awful lot he doesn’t know nowadays.

 

* * *

 

He is empty, empty for the first time in so long - there’s emptiness and then there’s  _ emptiness, _ the knowledge that Alex is dead, the lack of Hunger in Hunger’s arms.

 

* * *

 

There’s a line of purple like a ring, like a mane, growing every day around Hunger’s neck, nestled in the grey, tucked beneath the chin. Hunger isn’t furry but his edges look more ragged by the day.

He connects with Eliza, still the beneficiary of Alex’s will, and she tells him, over the phone, “Cirrus’s teeth - they were never like this before -”

“Is she going purple?” Aaron asks.

“A little -”

“That’s nothing to worry about,” he says. 

“How do you know?”

And then there’s a pause, and again he says, “I don’t know.”

And he adds: “But at least there’s part of him still here.”

 

* * *

 

He flips through the notebooks and notebooks and notebooks Alex left behind, and what strikes him most is the  _ exhaustion. _

_ I don’t know how I can keep getting out of bed in the morning there’s so much time _

_ I wish there was more but fuck I’m scared _

_ im scared im scared i want someone to get me out _

_ aaron is so kind and i could love him in another life - in another place - _

_ if things were different i could love him so much i wish i could love him i wish i _

That’s what hurts him deepest - the  _ i could, _ the  _ i wish, _ the almost-but-not-quite love, when he loved so deeply.

He remember’s Alex’s puppy-dog eyes and his big nose and his inkstained hands and his cascade of hair. He remembers the way his smile became so easy, so ready, in the last few days - the way the corners of his lips would twitch up and his teeth would show, just a little, and then he’d be breaking and laughing and Aaron would always, always, be swept up in the laughter.

He remembers the way Alex fucked him, touching him like he was something to treasure.

There were freckles on his skin, spattered across his back, between his shoulders, like Hunger’s. Prowl’s. Hunger’s.

Not a lot - just a few. A solar system, not a galaxy. Not even that. A handful of gems.

Aaron aches to kiss them.

 

* * *

 

They put him in the ground and this time it’s Aaron making a speech, four words:

“His name was Hunger.”

And everyone murmurs it and Hunger stiffens and hides, and Aaron feels exposed - known - and he can’t meet anyone’s eyes.

 

* * *

 

He meets Hercules and Peach. He meets Gil and Oeuf. He shakes their hands, gives them his condolences, steps back and lets them grieve.

“He cared a lot about you,” Hercules says.

“You brought him back to himself,” Gil says.

What neither of him say is:  _ You brought him back to life and then you killed him. _

Aaron fills in the blank himself.

 

* * *

 

He finds another notebook, and what’s written on the pages -

_ shit i guess i do love him maybe things are different _

_ what did i do to deserve him _

_ hes not john but hes so warm and i cant help but  _

\- sinks into him and burns and he cries, finally, cries for Alex, cries for all the things he lost, all the things he destroyed when he made the choice to swing.

 

* * *

 

The deep black of Hunger’s eyes becomes the hole in Alex’s face, where his nose was, where he died.

Hunger shifts, sometimes, and startles, and Aaron can’t tell why - he doesn’t see anything, but there’s something that’s upsetting him. Maybe not upsetting - there’s an ache in what Hunger feels, but it’s almost pleasant.

“Tell me what it is,” Aaron says. “Please.”

“No,” Hunger says.

Aaron wonders how long Hunger has had lips.

 

* * *

 

And then there’s the time he turns fast enough to see the purple fur, dim and limp now - and he whispers, “oh, Hunger.”

The purple mass perks a little. “I thought no one could see me anymore.”

“Is he -”

“No. He’s not - he’s gone.”

Aaron’s heart sinks.

“How are you here?”

Hunger, Alex’s Hunger, reaches out, and Aaron reaches back - and their hands connect.

Their hands connect.

Hunger, Aaron’s Hunger, opens a mouth and smiles, with teeth that are far too large for his face.

 

* * *

 

Aaron has  _ five  _ names.

Aaron. Hunger. Hunger. Hush. Prowl.


End file.
